Abstract. Information derived from an ethnohistorical analysis of Shingwaukonse's leadership career is used to assess a prevailing ethnographic contention that self- interested action characterized leadership among the Ojibwa by the mid-nineteenth century. It is argued that while the above position may be appropriate with regard to southwestern Ojibwa groups defiantly resisting white western expansionism, leaders in the northeastern sector of the Upper Great Lakes were seeking creative ways in which to assist bands in preserving the spirit of reciprocity traditionally characterizing relations between leader and group. Recent anthropological studies have demonstrated that the Ojibwa view of power relationships differs substan- tially from western conceptions of competitive self-interest, a finding that provides a convenient point of departure for a historical investigation not only of Shing- waukonse's career but also of certain important political, social, and economic developments that arose as a legacy of this chief's ideas and actions.

The speeches of Shingwaukonse, or Little Pine (1773-1853), an Ojibwa leader who resided at Garden River, east of Sault Ste. Marie, Canada VC7est, furnished some of the most explicit testimonials to the principle of aboriginal right to be expressed during the mid-nineteenth century. Shingwaukonse's ideas and actions set precedents that exerted a profound influence on the future course of Canadian Indian policy. By 1850 this chief had defined three major goals for native people: first, to establish link- ages with government agencies just beginning to exercise jurisdiction in the Upper Great Lakes area; second, to preserve an environment in which Ojibwa cultural values and organizational structures could survive; and finally, to devise new strategies conducive to the formation of band gov- ernments capable of assuming a degree of proprietorship over resources

Ethnohistory 45:1 (winter 1998). Copyright Oby the American Society for Ethno- history.

on aboriginal lands. All of these goals required that a chief be forceful and insightful. But could a nineteenth-century aboriginal leader evince prin- cipled ideas and behavior worthy of standing the test of time? Evidence from both oral and documentary sources indicates that Shingwaukonse's career left a lasting legacy, yet prevailing ethnohistorical models provide few avenues to investigate such innovative decision making in a construc- tive way. Until recently, anthropologists and historians have focused on Ojibwa decision making almost exclusively within the context of a hunt- ing, trapping, and fishing way of life, to the neglect of Ojibwa leaders' other traditional prerogatives. For this reason, this essay begins by ex- amining nonnative and native views on Ojibwa leadership, as well as the internal colonialism model, a prominent theoretical construct that has had a considerable bearing on recent ethnohistorical perspectives.

Next, the essay discusses why, as Ojibwa groups progressively became encapsulated within developing nation-states on both sides of the interna- tional border, traditional conceptions of leadership survived. Traditional leaders certainly had formidable challenges to face during the late eigh- teenth and early nineteenth centuries. Many of these individuals-among them Gitche Besheke, or Great Buffalo, from near Lapointe, Wisconsin, and Eshkebugecooshe, or Flat Mouth, from Leech Lake in Minnesota-joined a resistance movement whose momentum was fed by the dualistic ideology promulgated by Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, who por- trayed whites as evil serpents to be forced back into the sea. Discouraged by the Prophet's failure to achieve his goals, these leaders afterward re- emphasized attachment to conservative social and religious practices.' Yet new stresses and strains made conformity to such social ideals diffic~lt.~

In the resulting confusion certain chiefs, among them the Minnesotan leader Hole in the Day the Younger, a man whose career has been traced in some detail by James G. E. Smith, grew increasingly self-promotional in ways that dismayed their native follower^.^ It is argued, however, that while self-interest may have colored the actions of certain southwestern Ojibwa chiefs, Shingwaukonse and his allies north of the Upper Great Lakes were not so motivated. This fact led many southwestern Ojibwa bands to rally to their cause, as well as young Metis individuals, who, barred from fur trade occupations by company retrenchment, similarly felt threatened by a bleak economic and social future. Shingwaukonse promised both an alternative, and they hearkened to his vision, in which aboriginal values and western technology and expertise might be combined to furnish native people a secure place in the rising Canadian nation.

Nonnative and Native Conceptions of Ojibwa Leadership

Ojibwa chiefs confronted formidable challenges in having their views lis- tened to respectfully by government officialdom. Certain nonnative nine- teenth-century perspectives held that Ojibwa traditional beliefs precluded rational thought, and frontier resource developers, and others who found it expedient to contrast native interests with the public good, often champi- oned such views. Their charge that aboriginal individuals acted in disorga- nized, wasteful ways facilitated the rise and implementation of national policies severely limiting native peoples' control over resources even on aboriginal lands. Yet not all individuals expounding such views had con- scious ulterior motives for entertaining them. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, often lauded as the father of American ethnography, characterized Ojibwa beliefs as entities that constrained a person's thought to an emotional perception of the universe, "feeling almost everything, hoping almost noth- ir~g.''~Schoolcraft, who was Indian agent at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, from 1822 to 1841, firmly adhered to a belief in individual as well as collec- tive progress, to be attained through the refinement of what he termed the "manly independent spirit." Such an ideology stressed personal initiative, tough-minded decision making, and systematic reflection as the only ele- ments conducive to true leadership-a narrow perspective that militated against fine-grained analyses of Ojibwa traditional thought and action.

Early-twentieth-century comparisons drawn between western and Ojibwa concepts of personal initiative tended to cast the native thought system in an unfavorable light.s Recent anthropological studies, by con- trast, demonstrate that Algonquian societies impose checks and balances on leaders displaying disruptive self-interested behavior and that bands favor passive defiance over sudden violent resistance when principled paths of action are not immediately apparem6 Mary Black-Rogers, in an article titled "Ojibwa Power Belief System," argues that the Ojibwa stress the idea of responsibility far more than authoritative action. Cultural beliefs concerning power, control, and responsibility restrain leaders "from forc- ing a definition of the situation" to avoid impinging on the autonomy of others.' The range of a leader's prerogatives varies as a function of the self-sufficiency and productivity not of himself alone but of his unit as a whole.While a power holder's decision-making talents, seen as "gifts" derived from spiritual agencies, remain covertly expressed except in cer- tain ritualized settings, demonstration of their working to the benefit of the group assures others of the consistency with which power is used to further band welfare.

Prominent individuals also are considered able to shift identities with alacrity, a trait that, until recently, scholars seem to have overlooked. A recognized power holder could assume, abandon, or shift roles. There has been a lack of appreciation for the diversity and complexity of leadership roles within Ojibwa society. From information gathered by the author in the 1980s from elders at Garden River, Ontario, it nevertheless became apparent that the mishinaway (data collector), the kekedowenine (mediator and conflict resolver), and the oskabewis (speaker and messenger) were al- most as important to group decision making as the ogima (head chief) and the anikeogima (second or s~bchief).~

On assuming the role of mishinaway, a person had to abide closely by group directives, since both Schoolcraft and Schoolcraft's superior in the United States Indian Affairs Department, Thomas L. McKenney, also described the mishinaway as an economical aid responsible for the distribution of presents and other goods.1° While power holders might move among roles, wisdom often lay in knowing what role to play at what time.

At no time in history, however, could the head chief be considered either a centralizing agent or a distributor of material wealth. The ogima's principal duty was to establish and sustain political linkages with other powerful agencies, which would secure a stable milieu for his group. To this end an elaborate system of ceremonial exchange developed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries within the native community. Influ- ential leaders, endowed with knowledge of native medicine and political control, sought to uphold a balance of power among bands residing in the Upper Great Lakes area while maintaining workable and generally harmonious interaction with the French, and later British and American, authorities.

The Internal Colonialism Model

According to this model, indigenous peoples became encapsulated within state societies in ways that both fragmented and disempowered their popu- lations. As applied to the Ojibwa context," this construct contends that a rapid and drastic shift in the political order of the Upper Great Lakes dis- trict following the close of the War of 1812 divested aboriginal leadership of powers it had previously exercised during the earlier colonial era. In his seminal work The Middle Ground, Richard White argues that native- white interaction in the Great Lakes region engendered novel cultural accommodations in the Great Lakes region only until 1815.'~ After this date traditional leaders could muster neither the economic nor political wherewithal to make their groups' demands heard.

This reversal was especially hard on the Ojibwa population, since, as late as the 17gos, British and Ojibwa interests had tended to comple- ment one another. John Graves Simcoe, the governor of Upper Canada, had argued for the maintenance by Britain of an Indian buffer zone in the Ohio region,I3 and he had received backing for his plan, which was intended both to assist British trade and to counter threats of French and Spanish incursions from the south, from the Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant. In turn Brant, in conjunction with the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, attempted to convince the Ojibwa, Shawnee, Ottawa, and Miami to resist further land sales in the western district.14 This confederacy proved short- lived, however, since General Anthony VC7ayne's decisive victory over the Shawnees and their allies at Fallen Timbers in 1794, and the signing of the Treaty of Greenville the following year, deprived league members of much of their land in the Ohio Valley region. Distrust brewed of Brit- ain, which, despite promises, had failed to come to the aid of the western nations in their hour of need. Many Ojibwas, including Gitche Besheke and Eshkebugecooshe, became drawn into the militant activities of more southerly native nations, for without the support of British power, unifi- cation promised strength as the cutting edge of American settlement and resource exploration pressed northwest.15 But the British fur trade's de- cline occasioned widespread political, economic, and social disruption. Trading chiefs disappeared, since their role had related exclusively to the narrow trade sphere. Since peltry had translated into power in the nego- tiating forum, lack of fur in the Upper Great Lakes area meant reduced opportunities for connecting with commercial interests, and through them, with government officialdom. Gradually aboriginal leaders had to accept the consequences of governmental ultimatums made far beyond their con- trol, since, in losing most of their former powers, they had acquired few new ones.16

To quell American fears of potential native unrest along the Canadian- American boundary, the British VC7ar Office shunned its former aborigi- nal military and trade allies. Bands were induced to join experimental government-sponsored farming communities, isolated from metropolitan centers, fur trade posts, and the international border. Not surprisingly, Ojibwa leaders complained they felt like specimens under scrutiny, fearful that they and their people might be relegated to being hewers of wood and drawers of water." As time progressed, native leadership became increasingly shackled by externally devised and implemented economic, political, and legal constraints. Nineteenth-century United States Indian policy especially earmarked trade as one means by which Ojibwa politi- cal as well as economic loyalties could be manipulated after the close of the War of 1812.~' And it has been held that the economically marginal- ized Ojibwa chiefs encountered fewer and fewer opportunities for policy making other than in monitoring the distribution of government assis- tance money granted to their communities to ward off hardship. Yet while American military commanders residing on the western frontier may have promoted this view,19 it appears from a close analysis of the historical record that bands actually continued to act fairly consistently in keeping with their own interests-especially with regard to preserving a milieu in which their culture could survive and develop, far more than in response to commercial determinants. And as it may be posited that self-interest is not an inherent trait of Ojibwa culture, as Black-Rogers and other anthro- pologists have shown, competition over control of these limited funds- responsible for promoting political factionalism on some reserves-must be considered abnormal and stress induced.20

To bolster this argument, it certainly may be shown that Ojibwa cul- ture historically had exhibited amazing resilience in the face of change. For one thing, the fur trade had given rise to new leadership roles2' For another, the Ojibwa's negotiating practices, deriving from indigenous roots, had grown increasingly sophisticated over time.I2 Social scientists who adopt the internal colonialism model therefore find that they need to move be- yond the use of generative exchange theories, which focus principally on modes of attaining and retaining power, to include research into historical settings and social and cultural factors that have affected Ojibwa decision making.23 From this revised perspective, cherished Ojibwa values and be- liefs must be viewed as having a bearing on native leaders' own developing conceptions of what constituted aboriginal right within the context of the Canadian nation-state.24

Shingwaukonse's Early Leadership Career

Social and political changes were paramount facts of Shingwaukonse's life. Born in 1773 on Grand Island, Michigan, Little Pine assumed many roles before becoming a head chief in 1836, at sixty-three years of age. As a trad- ing chief he guided brigades to the Red River and the headwaters of the Missi~sippi.~~

He gained notoriety fighting against the Dakota, opposed the Shawnee Prophet's resistance campaign despite many other chiefs' in- volvement in it, and by 1809 had become an oskabewis, or s~okesperson.~~ His attachment to John Askin Jr., the MCtis son of a prominent British merchant at Mackinac and Detroit, strengthened his resolve to uphold the British interest during the VC7ar of 1812. He fought on the British side in many engagements, including campaigns at Detroit, Queenston Heights, and Moraviantown. In the role of a kekedowenine he resolved a dispute between an official party of United States military personnel and a local Sault subchief at a treaty-making ceremony in 1820.~' Although Shing- waukonse remained aloof from American treaty negotiations, his timely intervention in 1820 brought him to the attention of Henry Rowe School- craft, who from then on became a principal recorder of his activities and accomplishments.

According to Schoolcraft, Shingwaukonse traced "his lineage from the old Crane band" at Sault Ste. Marie whose members regarded an eighteenth-century figure, Gitcheokanojeed, or Great Crane, as their com- mon ancestor.28 Shingwaukonse, however, did not possess the Crane totem, the bird symbol employed by most of the other Sault leaders as a desig- nating mark in council forums. A totem was both a personal and a group identifier, transferred between generations in the male line.29 Linked to the local band through his mother and having either a French or French MCtis father, Shingwaukonse initially lacked a totem.30 A celebrated war leader, orator, member of the Midewiwin and Wabano medicine societies, and a djiski, or shaking tent conjuror, Little Pine nevertheless elicited re- spect from native and nonnative alike. He was a leading member of the Midewiwin, or Grand Medicine Society, where traditional power holders congregated for several days to perform rites that stressed revitalization both on the personal and community level, and undoubtedly his reputa- tion as a noted medicine practitioner enhanced his political stature. He had formally declared his autonomy from the United States in the spring of 1836, but it was not until later the same year, following the death of a Crane leader, Kaygayosh, who had been Shingwaukonse's mentor in the Midewiwin, that Shingwaukonse assumed the rank of a head chief, with the Plover totem that he had acquired during a visionary experience as his personal identifier (Figure I).~' From then on he would exercise ter- ritorial jurisdiction over lands around the British Sault-a right that, he proclaimed, had been recognized in 1814 by John Askin Jr. and in 1833 by the lieutenant governor, Sir John C01borne.~~

During the 1830s the British Sault was still very much a frontier com- munity. Despite an incoming white population and an Indian agency on the American side, Ojibwa band society on the Canadian shore remained relatively untrammeled by external laws or social mores. Intermarriages had taken place between the local Ojibwa, French, British, and Mitis?' yet the main Ojibwa community, clustered near the mouth of the Gar- den River, remained spatially and occupationally distinct from its MCtis neighbors, whose dwellings straggled along the shoreline of the St. Mary's Channel opposite the rapids. It conformed poorly to frontier social models,

Figure I. Shingwaukonse's Plover totem as he inscribed it on "Petition of Chief Chingwauk, June loth, 1846 (Petition No. 156); NAC, RG 10, vol. 612. The document, drafted by William John Keating and sent to George Ironside, Indian agent at Manitowaning, Manitoulin Island, through the auspices of the Hudson's Bay Company, provided a census of Shingwaukonse's band. In 1846 it contained thirty-three men, thirty-one women, thirty-eight boys, and twenty-four girls.

for it fitted neither the image of an exclusively fur-trading hunter-gatherer society nor the mold of a cohesive multiethnic community similar to those identified by Richard White for the Ohio Valley.34 The best one can say is that it comprised an aboriginal society in transition, although still dis- tinctly Ojibwa in cultural chara~ter;~ with leaders who could remember when their people had been integral to events and who expected to be consulted and heard during the birth pangs of the emerging social order, much as they had been at the height of the fur trade or during the major intercolonial wars.

The Garden River band rarely suffered economic shortages, despite the declining fur trade, which contributed to their considerable autonomy vis-a-vis both British and Americans. Unlike situations further to the west, where fur trade monopoly conditions prevailed, the Sault Ojibwa had ac- cess to independent trading establishments, as well as three Hudson's Bay Company posts.36 Individual Ojibwa families preserved their own eco- nomic independence by maintaining winter hunting limits in the interior, in keeping with the family hunting territory system. In the spring they made maple sugar, planted corn, beans, and squash, and tended European- introduced crops such as potatoes in clearings near the coast. During the summer many traveled long distances in search of European goods in ex- change for their furs, fish, and sugar. Each season elicited its own special economic endeavors and usually provided a small surplus to tide them over the beginning of the next. Their economy further paralleled that of the MCtis in being at least partly based on the local whitefish and trout fisheries, which had sustained a thriving native commercial enterprise since the early French eras3? But since Sault chiefs had exercised territorial pre- rogatives that had been recognized by the French and, later, the British, the Ojibwa felt that they had a claim superior to that of the hietis in regard to local resource^.^^

Shingwaukonse recognized that protecting his people's diversified economy was the key to their continued independence. By regulating mem- bership in his band, he indirectly reduced pressure on group resources, and he strongly opposed encroachments on his territorial prerogatives. He tried to examine issues from all sides. In keeping with traditional Ojibwa beliefs regarding power, he judged an idea by its effectiveness and saw little utility in amassing untried wisdom. He spoke with missionaries of many different Christian denominations but chose baptism in the Anglican faith after his son Buhkwujjenene was healed of a severe nasal hemorrhage following a prayer session.39 Aware of the strides in agriculture made by Ojibwa residing near the Credit River, he called for government assistance to help his people achieve the same results near Sault Ste. Marie.40 To him, missionaries of all faiths comprised potentially valuable mediators between his people and metropolitan society at large, to whom he directed numerous appeals tor public assistance in building houses, schools, and sawmills.

In 1833 L,ieutenant Governor Colborne promised to provide Shing- waukonse's people with a farming instructor, a schoolteacher, a carpenter, and sufficient iunds to build twenty houses.41 When no aid materialized, however, the chiei sought a broader audience. He also ceased to subscribe exclusively to Anglicanism and allowed his sons and daughters to exer- cise their.own judgment in forming denominational attachments. When deliberating the feasibility of granting land for an Anglican church, he in- vited Roman Catholics as well as Anglicans to his council.42 Eventually not only the Church of England but also the Roman Catholic and XIethodist Churches received land grants from Shingwaukonse to erect churches at Garden River. Shingwaukonse evidently retained his sense of balance and perspective within a teeming sea of ideological diversity by holding on to much of his faith in his traditional beliefs while gradually adding to the range of his religious knowledge through adoptions from Christianity. Yet the appeal of the Church oi England, the religion of the British sovereign whose missionaries could be ~ersuaded to open up channels to metropoli- tan corridors of power, kept the chief praising the merits of this particular faith to head chiefs at Lapointe and places further westward. It is testimony to the Garden River leader's respected stature that petitions from Gitche Besheke at Lapointe, and other southwestern chiefs equally as prominent, made their way under his direction into the hands of the local Anglican missionary, and from there to the Indian Affairs De~artment.'~ In order to express their wishes to the British government, Ojibwa leaders visited Garden River from as far away as the headwaters of the Red Ri~er.'~

To sustain his group's economy from encroachment by outsiders, Shingwaukonse entered into a joint agreement with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1834 and 183j to protect native fisheries along the north shores of Lakes Huron and Superior against exploitation by American free traders4* Then suddenly, in 1837, a more pressing challenge arose: The United States government announced its intention to remove the south- western Ojibwa to lands beyond the Mis~issippi.~~

Determined to aid those of his people who appealed to him for assistance and refuge, Shingwau- konse redoubled his efforts to enhance his community's economic base so that it could sustain a potentially large influx of native immigrants from south of the border. Under the stress of this new mandate, he delegated one of his sons, Buhkwujjenene, as his group's kekedowenine, or ombudsman; another of his sons, Ogista, as his ambassador or mishinaway; and John Bell and Louis Cadotte as his interpreters. Equipped with these new aides, he set out to inform as many missionary, governmental, and commercial agencies as possible about his plans.

But when these efforts to gain a listening ear proved no more effi- cacious than had the former, gauged to foster government assistance for an agricultural community, Shingwaukonse and his council embarked on a new scheme. The chief's vision of an aboriginal homeland on British soil embraced the native community in the broadest sense, and to this end he endeavored to instill a new catalytic unity of purpose between the two formerly separate groups, the Ojibwa and the Metis. By inviting Metis to come, join his group, and share carpentry and other technical skills, the Garden River band soon were able to engage in boatbuilding, coopering, and numerous other occupations previously unfamiliar to them (Figure 2).'+' For their part, the Mitis who exercised this option, most of whom had kin ties to the Ojibwa, had gained a valuable ally and spokesperson.

Shingwaukonse's formal announcement in 1837 to the British govern- ment of his new plan shocked Indian Department officials who, under policy directives from Colborne's successor, Sir Francis Bond Head, had anticipated removing the Ojibwa to an isolated mission station at Mani- towaning on Pvlanitoulin Island in northern Lake H~ron.~Vor

many years afterward Shingwaukonse's invitation to the Pvletis would repeatedly come under trenchant criticism. Xcharge was raised that he displayed a Machia- vellian penchant for shifting identities whenever he desired a multiethnic following large enough to accomplish some self-interested goal, usually at government expense.49 Yet the preponderance of evidence suggests that he perpetually judged his own competence by his effectiveness in attain- ing group goals, not his own goals. Although claiming Metis ancestry, he remained Ojibwa in cultural orientation and showed his determination to preserve cherished Ojibwa values, to the degree that most Mitis later stated that in 1837 they had rejected his offer, complaining they "were Indian enough without binding themselves to be under an Indian chief."50

By the time Upper Canada extended its jurisdiction to the land base at the Sault in1845, the Ojibwa and Metis had become habituated to spending the winter logging in the bush together. Shingwaukonse always required that individuals and groups ask his permission before removing timber, so when a newly appointed Crown Lands agent, Joseph Wilson, began to seize logs cut by the native community, the chief declared such incidents little short of robbery. "[When] Mr. Wilson sells our wood & acts with us as he does, I feel as if he entered into my house and took without my leave what he might find therein," he asserted.s1 Yet only after 1845, when timber and mineral were sought by a new class of entrepreneurs, would Little Pine's appeals for protection and aid rouse the government from its lethargy on the native claims issue. Until then Shingwaukonse frequently assumed the more humble role of mishinaway over the rank of respected chief. This enabled him to be flexible in his responses to new ideas, for it was he, rather than his Ojibwa and Mitis supporters, who tended to be the source of new, integrating cultural ideas and constructs of the kind iden-

tified in The Middle Ground. The chief constantly sought and processed new information on subjects he believed important to his people. While unable to read or write, he proved an alert student of events who was careful to check facts and to iecord his findings using mnemonic devices, some of which may have had their origins in Midewiwin practice^.^^ And he systematically persevered in his independent quest for knowledge, even when revelations proved disturbings3

Rejecting both British and American Indian policy as inadequate pro- tection against the dangers of encapsulation, he hurled a provocative chal- lenge at the Anglican and Roman Catholic missionaries residing on Mani- toulin Island in 1841: "You are two Black Coats, now I want to know if our Saviour marked in the Bible, that the whites would journey towards the setting sun until they found a large Island in which there were many Indians living in rich country-that they should rob the natives of their animals, furs and land, after which the English and Americans should draw a line, from one to the other end of the Island and each take his share and do what he pleases with the Natives, I ask if that's written in the Bible?"j4 From this point onward, he bypassed the Manitoulin Island missions as primary avenues of communication and sought to develop the most direct and personal linkages possible to metropolitan governmental agencies as well as other agencies.

Shingwaukonse, Champion of the Unretreating Frontier

Shingwaukonse shrewdly scanned the horizon for any activities that might in the least impinge on the ancient territorial prerogatives that he and other head chiefs had exercised at the Sault for over one hundred years. And there was good cause for such vigilance, for the Legislative Assembly of the United Canadas, with a blatant disregard for issues of native rights, in the spring of 1846 sent a provincial land surveyor by the name of Alexander Vidal to mark off allotments near the rapids. Incensed, Shingwaukonse asked Vidal to quit the areaess

In response, the chief received a discouraging communication from the Indian Affairs Department: To arrange for a government inquiry into his complaints regarding mining and logging interests would be out of the question until he and the 126 individuals comprising his band moved to Manitoulin Island.j6 Shingwaukonse initially refused to be upset by this turn of events. In a petition to the governor-general, Lord Metcalfe,s7 he inquired by what authority a new threat, mining prospectors, had been al- lowed to stake mineral locations. The native individuals who had assisted the miners in locating copper, iron, silver, and lead deposits wished to retain their traditional rights to these resources. He then cordially invited Metcalfe to meet with him in Montreal so they could discuss arrangements relating to mineral proprietorship, royalties, and dues. As for the directive to move to Manitoulin Island, the chief viewed it as unworthy of notice. "I want always to live and plant at Garden River," he emphasized and "expect a share of what is found on my lands."j8

However, when Indian Affairs warned Shingwaukonse not to proceed to Montreal but to move at once to Manitoulin Island, he realized that he faced a threat unlike any he had confronted before. "Already has the white man licked clean up from our lands the whole means of our subsistence, and now they commence to make us worse off. . . . I call God to witness in the beginning and do so now again and say that it was false that the land is not ours, it is ours," he contended.j9 One large mining location took in the whole area of the Garden River village.60 Since the chief had never negotiated in any way with the location's claimants, he felt justified in driving exploring parties off the site.61

The ideological sides had been drawn. The chief would act far differ- ently from the stereotypical image of the politically defenseless Indian. By drawing on his broad pool of allies, native and nonnative alike, he attracted the notice of the press, and within three years his native claim had escalated into an international issue. Aspects of this contest have stubbornly defied historical analysis. Scholars dealing with the subject have come to different conclusions regarding the nature of forces behind events.62 All have agreed, however, that the contest arose as a frontier resistance to metropolitan control. And yet it constituted a form of native protest that evidenced none of the tumultuous characteristics of cult-induced movements such as the earlier Shawnee uprising. All in all, it presented a principled show of opposition, basically moderate and nonviolent. The tendency of factors motivating this native campaign to elude simple historical analysis arises from the fact that, as often as not, they drew on and complemented, rather than challenged, mid-nineteenth-century aspirations and goals.

Shingwaukonse and the Mining Companies

Tired of waiting for replies to written appeals, in the spring of 1848 Shingwaukonse and a small party of native supporters proceeded to Montreal to lay their claim in person before Lord Metcalfe's successor, Lord Elgin. While in the metropolis the chief directed a barrage of complaints against certain miners who, he argued, had trespassed on his territory, blasted rock, and set fires that drove away game. At the same time he maintained that agents of mining companies re vented the Ojibwa from cutting timber even though conditions of sale for the mine sites had not been fulfilled.63

To ascertain the validity of these grievances, Elgin sent Thomas G. Anderson, visiting superintendent of Indian Affairs from Cobourg, to the Sault in the summer to investigate the matter. During his interviews with Shingwaukonse and Peau de Chat, one of Shingwaukonse's allies from Fort William, Anderson challenged the Ojibwa leaders to clarify by what authority they claimed the land and its resources.64 Visibly taken aback, Shingwaukonse declared that copper had been placed in his people's lands as a gift from the Creator. He considered it part of an emerging plan by which the Ojibwa would be granted new sources of revenue by no less than divine mandate. To give his statements additional bite, the chief re- quested Louis Cadotte to send a translation of his speech to an American newspaper.

Anderson's favoring of agricultural over industrial pursuits for the Ojibwa tended to blind him to the native population's range of economic potentials. Rather than evidencing docile conformity either to the wishes of Anderson or to broader government wishes, Shingwaukonse's press release demanded implementation of a system offering the Ojibwa compensation for a resource base they unquestionably saw as being under their own proprietorship and protection. They also expected mining revenues to be translated into future income for their communities: "The Great Spirit, we think, placed these rich mines on our lands, for the benefit of his red chil- dren, so that their rising generation might get support from them when the animals of the woods should have grown too scarce for our subsistence. We will carry out, therefore the good object of our Father, the Great Spirit. We will sell you lands, if you will give us what is right and at the same time, we want pay for every pound of mineral that has been taken off our lands, as well as for that which may hereafter be carried away." 65

Traditionally, copper had been viewed by the Ojibwa as a preserve of formidable spiritual agencies, and its unsanctioned extraction and use were seen as detrimental to the cosmological foundations of the universe. Out- croppings were considered to be guarded by Buhkwujjenenesug, little wild people who resided in cliffs. Since he still subscribed, at least in part, to this cosmological order, Shingwaukonse would have been under the same ideological constraints regarding copper as other chiefs, but, equipped with new knowledge about Western culture and what he had learned of Christianity, he apparently felt confident enough to tackle the challenge of making mining a paying proposition for his people. This constituted a stance in which he firmly believed and from which he refused to deviate until his death. It would restore the Ojibwa to an integral place in the econ- omy of the developing nation and would have broad regional repercussions. Peau de Chat of Fort William, Totomenai of Michipicoten, and Keokonse and Noquagabo of Thessalon stood behind him. Southwestern Ojibwa chiefs, among them such notable figures as Eshkebugecooshe of Leech Lake, Minnesota, and Gitche Besheke of Lapointe region, Wisconsin, sent messengers to Garden River to learn more concerning his plan.

Ultimately, Shingwaukonse's most advantageous linkages lay through his association with a new frontier element, a small number of well- educated nonnative individuals interested in independently prospecting for copper north of Lakes Huron and Superior. The foremost member of this group was Allan Macdonell, a lawyer and mining prospector from

who understood something of Ojibwa society because of past family fur trade connections. But even more important, Macdonell main- tained relations with Toronto's growing legal and business community, the metropolitan press, and the corridors of political power.

A former shareholder in the Quebec and Lake Superior Mining As- sociation, which operated copper mines near Michipicoten, Macdonell surveyed a mineral location north of the Sault and entered into a long-term lease regarding it with Shingwaukonse and another chief named Nebena- goching. By this lease's terms, still pending government approval in 1848, the Ojibwa would receive a royalty of 2 percent on all mining proceeds, and the site in question would be returned to the band if not worked within five yeas6' Macdonell's arrangement, moreover, comprised only one of several systems introduced to the Ojibwa that were designed to cap- ture and distribute potential mineral revenues to the native peoples. For instance, William John Keating, a former Indian agent from Amherstburg, recommended that leases of mineral locations near Michipicoten be based on the model operating in Cornwall, "where the Lord of the Manor always retains the Royalty, tho' his returns vary with the profit of the mine."68

In the fall of 1848, according to Thomas G. Anderson's son the Rev- erend Gustavus Anderson, the Anglican missionary at Garden River, Shing- waukonse had reextended his invitation to Mitis families to join the Gar- den River community if they desired.69 By this time the chief had grown so impatient with government inactivity on the claims issue that he had prevailed upon Allan Macdonell to use his legal training to represent the Ojibwa's position, to which the lawyer immediately responded by warning the mining companies against cutting any more timber on band ~roperty.'~ Anderson and other government officials thus found themselves pitted against a formidable duo on the issue of aboriginal rights.

The following spring, during yet another visit to Lord Elgin in Mon- treal, the chief, accompanied by Macdonell, Ogista, Nebenag~chin~,

and Cadotte (Figure 3), made it clear that Anderson's skepticism regarding the foundations of aboriginal rights constituted an insult not only to him- self but to all persons of native descent. In an eloquent speech that was later translated and published in the Montreal Gazette, Shingwaukonse appealed to the government to forgo its former lethargy and instead par- ticipate actively in helping the Ojibwa secure what was theirs by the will of the Creator. "Assist us, then, to reap that benefit intended for us," he proposed. "Enable us to do this, and our hearts will be great within, for we will feel that we are again a nation."" But instead of offering aid, the government stiffened its opposition to the Ojibwa's position, a response that drew a veiled warning from the chief. Even "the most cowardly of animals though they feel destruction sure, will turn upon the hunter," he ~autioned."'~But he also made it clear that any form of coercion would only be a last resort.

Shingwaukonse's importunity prompted a second government inquiry in September 1849.This time Indian Affairs dispatched two commissioners to the Upper Great Lakes region: Thomas G. Anderson, who had headed the investigation the previous year, and Alexander Vidal, whose surveying operations had been disrupted in 1847. Both were instructed to gain an estimate of the amount of compensation the Ojibwa would accept for their lands, but to discuss nothing more. A map drawn by these two commis- sioners of the north shore of Lake Superior demonstrated a remarkable thing (Figure 4):The boundaries of tracts, claimed by the bands along the coastline, lay flush against one another so that no land remained outside the Ojibwa's territorial aegi~.'~ The native peoples had appropriated some of the richest mining country in Canada West as their inheritance. Since 184j they had been instrumental in revealing outcroppings of copper, iron, gold, and silver to the white prospectors, and now they expected to glean the rewards of the prerogatives their leaders so forcefully upheld over these sites. For Shingwaukonse to have spoken in 1848 and 1849 on behalf of most of the bands along the north shore of Lake Superior testifies to the degree of faith his native constituents vested in his abilities as a power holder. And he and his close native allies in the resource business, Peau de Chat and Totemenai, had certainly gained attention. Public sympathy elicited by excerpts of Shingwaukonse's speeches in the Montreal press alarmed those with Montreal-based mining interests, who feared that a treaty recognizing native rights to resources other than fur might endanger their title to the mineral locations.

Aware of the miners' mounting fears during the course of his in- quiries at the Sault, Vidal drew up a policy statement that negated the Ojibwa's prerogatives even over their land base. Any forthcoming treaty

Quebec ad Wre Superor -8 Amclanon

Mm

Figure 4. Mining localities in the vicinity of Sault Ste. Marie, ON, and on the northeastern shore of Lake Superior.

transaction, he argued, should not be viewed as "a purchase or surrender of territory but as the purchase of the right of hunting in and occupation [of the land]."74 During meetings with the Ojibwa, Vidal interpreted native impassivity while listening to his ideas not as a show of defiance, as it actually may have been, but as the consequence of manipulations by "de- signing whites." This led the commissioner to portray the Ojibwa leaders as ignorant and incompetent. Native irresoluteness, he held, required the imposition of an "ultimatum of the government" upon the bands north of Lakes and Superior."

On 15 October, when Vidal trenchantly demanded that Shingwau- konse place an evaluation on his "occupancy rights," the chief abruptly interrupted the discussion by stressing his unfamiliarity with the terms Vidal proposed. Before answering, he would have to consult with his people, he concluded. Then at the meeting the next day, Shingwaukonse terminated all further meetings with the officials, and there matters stood until the autumn of 1849. The chief's eventual response to what he felt to be a colossal affront to his people's rights, intelligence, and aspirations was characteristic of him; it was deliberate and well ~lanned.'~ In the fall a party consisting of Shingwaukonse, Allan Macdonell, Macdonell's brother Angus, another lawyer from Toronto named Wharton Metcalfe, Chief Nebenagoching, four Metis leaders, and about twenty-five other native individuals7' journeyed northward up the Lake Superior coast by boat and on the night of 14 November peaceably dispossessed the Quebec and Montreal Mining Association of its holdings at Mica Bay, not far from Michipicoten. The company manager shipped the residents of the Mica Bay community by schooner to the Sault, and the native party and their legal assistants held the mine site until the spring of 1850 Troops were sent to the Sault, although no violence ensued. Shingwaukonse and his closest native supporters surrendered voluntarily to justices of the peace and then proceeded under escort to Toronto. Once in the city, they were placed in jail and were released a few days later by the chief justice, Sir John Beverley Robinson, a relative through marriage to Macdonell who argued that the party had been arrested illegally.78 After continued govern- ment vacillation about what course to pursue, in 1851 the group received an official pard~n.'~

John Bonner, the mine manager, who presided over the evacuation of the mining company's employees and their families, charged that Mac- donell desired to use his position as an intermediary with the Ojibwa to secure leases that would be profitable only to himself.80 From other sources, however, it appears that Macdonell may have been disinterested. The Hudson's Bay Company factor, William MacTavish, noted that Mac- donell repeatedly had stated that if the Ojibwa could obtain better terms from others, he would have "great pleasure" in relinquishing his interest in his own claim.8' In a letter to the superintendent general of Indian Affairs in December, Macdonell described his role with regard to the Ojibwa in patron-client terms, yet implicit in his statements lay indications of a recip- rocal relationship between himself and the chiefs of a different order than that which usually obtained between a lawyer and those whom he repre- sentedeS2With an intensity of purpose, evidently imbued with a dynamism derived from Shingwaukonse's own vision for the future, Macdonell set out to formulate a case for aboriginal rights that he eventually anticipated testing in the

Viewed against a background of longer-term events, the Mica Bay mine takeover emerges as an act of protest against government insensitivity toward native hopes for the future. From this perspective, the dispossession of the mine constitutes a brief incident in what was, on the whole, a well- organized native claims campaign. At no time were Shingwaukonse and his allies opposed to resource exploration and development; they simply wanted their fair share. They hoped to preserve an environment in which their community structures could evolve gradually to meet new economic and political challenges. They demanded a say in the regulation of local logging, fishing, and mining activities directly affecting their lives. They also wanted to conserve the potentialities of their highly diversified resource base. In Macdonell they had found a champion for these interests, for the lawyer's political proclivities led him to oppose domination of the hinterland by powerful monopolizing metropolitan interests, and he gen- uinely sympathized with the Ojibwa's struggle to preserve their rights to the land and its resources.

Macdonell was connected by marriage both to John Beverley Robin- son and to William B. Robinson, the attorney general's brother, who was selected by the government to preside over the signing of the Robin- son treaties at Sault Ste. Marie on 7 and 9 September 1850. Macdonell's personal connections probably cast a moderating influence over events subsequent to the Mica Bay affair, and they even may have helped bring about the pardon. But one cannot ignore the fact that the Reform govern- ment, owing to its tardiness in responding to the native claim, would have found itself in an acutely embarrassing position if it had not acted quickly to draw attention away from the claims issue. The arrival of the native party in Toronto had caused considerable public excitement, and the fact that Shingwaukonse had fought in the War of 1812 as a British ally and now was on trial by the Canadian government circulated in American as well as Canadian ne~spapers.~~

Not surprisingly, the government seriously searched for an approach that would silence the Ojibwa's demands once and for all.

Neither the lieutenant governor nor the officials present at the signing of the Robinson treaties accorded any recognition to native demands or aspirations. Moreover, interior Ojibwa groups, whose trapping livelihood depended on the Hudson's Bay, were exposed to pressures to which their relatively more economically autonomous coastal native neighbors were not subject. Informed that the Hudson's Bay Company fully backed the government's position, many interior bands distanced themselves from, or lapsed into a state of passive defiance during, the Robinson treaty nego- tiations, when it appeared that the government's will would prevail over Shingwaukonse's proposed scheme. The final treaty terms merely provided bands with a lump-sum payment, small annuities, and a reserve system based on the same model as that already established in southern Ontario,85 and stipulated that the Ojibwa could continue hunting and fishing on ceded lands not yet sold or leased by the Crown. Also incorporated was a prom- ise that individuals would receive an annuity of one pound, or more, per capita should revenue from the surrendered tracts enable the government, without loss, to increase payments. Yet by depriving native leadership of its traditional prerogatives over lands and resources, the terms had rendered bands susceptible to encroachment from many quarters.

Surveys disregarded treaty descriptions of reserves to the extent that several mineral locations, originally recognized as lying on band property, afterward lay outside reserve boundarie~.~~

Meanwhile claimants to loca- tions still considered to lie on reserve land pillaged both mineral and timber without paying fees or dues and then abandoned the denuded sites. These men often prevented the Ojibwa from cutting wood even for personal use and challenged band members' rights to local fisheries that native people had frequented for generations.

Initially unaware of this new lack of protection for their interests, Shingwaukonse and Macdonell entered into negotiations with a local mer- chant to begin a native lumbering bu~iness.~' To make their transaction legal, they apprised Indian Affairs of their plan and requested assistance in purchasing machinery for a sawmill. A final, decisive blow to their venture fell when the Legislative Assembly introduced a bill that made "inciting Indians or half-breeds" an offense punishable by up to five years' incarcera- tion in the provincial penitentiary. Wryly branded by the Ojibwa's legal counselor as "an Act to procure the conviction of Allan Macdonell," the bill, which passed into law in June 1853,~~

not only effectively terminated Macdonell's association with his former native clients but also prohibited the Ojibwa from seeking legal counsel in the future.

His petition regarding a sawmill ignored, Shingwaukonse prepared yet another direct personal appeal, this time to Queen Victoria. On learning that the government adamantly refused to allow any Ojibwa immigrants from the United States to settle at Garden River, Shingwaukonse, with a local merchant's help, headed up a fund-raising campaign in 1853 for an expedition to England.89 The government's rejection of a petition from band head chiefs in Minnesota and Wisconsin must have cut him deeply. Ogista had acted as Shingwaukonse's mishinaway in inviting southwestern Ojibwa leaders such as Eshkebugecooshe from Leech Lake and Ahmous- a fifth-generation descendant of Ketchenezuhyauh, an eighteenth-century Crane chief-who resided at Lac du Flambea~.~~

Now they had agreed to remove, along with two thousand of their people.91 Not to act effectively might suggest to those for whom he felt responsible that he ultimately lacked power or control, a fate the chief probably refused to even contem- plate.92 So, although afflicted with gangrene in his back and "not expected to live,"93 the old warrior roused himself sufficiently to set off toward Toronto in early June. Unfortunately, the eighty-year-old chief traveled only as far as Penetanguishene when he and his party were forced to turn back in September, owing to his declining health. He died in November of 1854.~~

The outcome of the Robinson treaties had made Shingwaukonse rest- less. He had sought to do everything he could to restore to his people some measure of their independence within the nation-state, and before his death he had transmitted this intensity of purpose to this sons. In the fall of 1854 Ogista led another brief attack on mining property north of the Sault that involved firing some shots past employees working for the Quebec and Lake Superior Mining Association holdings on Michipicoten Island,ss but the time for such activities had passed. Ogista soon modified his behavior under the pressure of traditional group checks and balances to emerge as staunch a defender of aboriginal rights as his father had been before him.

Confronting Internal Colonialism

Their heady expectations of long-term sustained yields from Lake Superior timber and mines dashed, Ogista and those who succeeded him faced far more formidable obstacles than their predecessors. Shingwaukonse's vision had embraced the bands along the entire north shore of Lake Superior, and much of the north shore of Lake Huron, since band leaders from Fort William eastward to the French River had come to repose their trust in the potential efficacy of his ideas and actions. Now these same bands faced a future of residing on small reserves, with little control over local resources. With the passing of reserve lands from native to government control, even revenue from reserve mining and logging operations was irrevocably lost or fell into trust funds that were frittered away on surveys or the building of colonization roads primarily to benefit white settlement. Native fisheries were alienated, timber was taken without band permission, and the earlier system of cutting wood on individual family lots was replaced by block cut- ting, which denuded the reserve's landscape and threatened the economic viability of the traditional family winter group. Local political lobbying compelled the band to cede its best farming areas in the late 1850s. Then in the early twentieth century, when reserves in the Sault vicinity became too small to support their growing populations, bands had to purchase lands from the tracts that had been taken away earlier. An elective system was unilaterally imposed on the Garden River band in 1891 following Ogista's death.96 Not only did it structurally marginalize chiefs and councils away from the political mainstream, but it also subjected them to insidious ex- ternal campaigns to render them almost wholly powerless insofar as local resource issues were c~ncerned.~'

In 1916 this fact became all too evident when one active and educated chief, George Kabaosa, after leading a cam- paign to gain a measure of community control over his reserve's gravel and timber stores, found himself suddenly deprived of his status by government fiat, despite the protests of those who had elected him.98

What do these events say about the nature of the leadership evi- denced by Shingwaukonse and his successors? That, ultimately, it was weak and ineffectual? Or that, though constrained by a legal system enshrined in successive Indian Acts, it displayed surprising resilience? On review- ing the evidence, the second verdict appears most credible, since Garden River's leadership consistently exhibited faithfulness both to Shingwau- konse's vision for the future and to traditional group values and norms. A long-term perspective is required in order to substantiate this contention, however. Otherwise the premise is difficult to uphold, since 1850 Garden River leaders were almost always portrayed in official documents and press reports as obstructing the public good whenever they espoused any eco- nomic occupation other than trapping or farming, regardless of the ways in which they framed their appeals. Modern social science models also have done native communities such as Garden River an injustice, for they have similarly focused too narrowly on transactions having to do with the extraction and exchange of only a few crucial but basically subsistence- level resources, such as fur, fish, or farming produce. Yet Ojibwa culture has never precluded native interest in a wide range of resources on lands falling under the aegis of band governments, nor has it prevented com- munities from calling for assistance in the form of management skills and technological infrastructure. Instead, the Ojibwa continuously sought to protect what they had until they could develop it fully on their own terms. When it came to preserving sustained returns from their local resource base, their chiefs proved tireless defenders, despite repeated disappoint- ments. Shingwaukonse, the most visible and vocal of this contingent, was also one of the most inclusive in his outlook, for he called out to Ojibwa and MCtis leaders throughout the Upper Great Lakes region for assistance in actualizing his vision. His motivations seem to have lain in a tendency, sweeping over the Upper Great Lakes native community at the time, to favor inclusiveness over exclusiveness-a trend that had even pervaded the highly conservative Midiwiwin forum.99 It has long been recognized that major social and ideological changes tend to find their roots in broad social movements, and it is anticipated that this will prove no less true in native history than in mainstream history. Future studies will likely show that Ojibwa chiefs in the Robinson treaties area continued to mount collective campaigns after 1850 to try to extract what they viewed as a fair share of local resource revenues for their people. When asked for his views on this subject in the early 198os, ex-councillor Fred E. Pine Sr. said: "Of course we did! After all, what is his [the government and mining company's] right? It [the law] can be wrong even if it wears a crown of gold. And what is gold if it means that? He's stepping over God." loo

Elders at Garden River further maintained that Shingwaukonse's scheme respected the interests of all parties involved in it, whereas Cana- dian Indian policy in practice tended to treat reserves as unprotected com- mon lands. Had sustained native protests not been mounted in opposition, what has been termed "the tragedy of the commons" would almost cer- tainly have played itself out over and over.lO' In refusing to digress from its cherished goals, Garden River leadership evidenced astounding resil- ience, since Shingwaukonse's style of disinterested leadership in pursuit of collective goals continued to guide action even within the bureaucra- tized political forum established after 1890. Owing to Shingwaukonse's past successes in establishing linkages with government, church, and com- mercial agencies, the band had many avenues through which to pursue its interests. And because of outside help, sometimes from unexpected quar- ters, small but important victories occurred insofar as native control over local resources was concerned-certainly enough to negate the insidious view that the Ojibwa were inherently incapable of launching and managing economic ventures.lo2 Such instances provide welcome precedents today when government-community comanagement has become a key term in policy formation respecting economic development on aboriginal lands.

For almost a century and a half, Shingwaukonse's ideas, actions, and goals have inspired natibe decision making in the Sault region. And the maintenance of a milieu congenial to the survival of group values remains a persistent theme at Garden River. The end of the intercolonial wars, the decline of the fur trade, the rise of the Canadian nation-state, and the advent of mining and logging heralded an elaboration of ideological con- cepts among the Ojibwa, as native chiefs and councils adopted new ideas derived from European precedents and, as far as possible, shaped them to serve Ojibwa ends. But throughout all these changes, the Garden River band tenaciously held that its leadership must first and foremost seek out economic and social opportunities for those for whom it was responsible, in line with the Ojibwa belief system concerning power, regardless of the nature of any chief's personal interests. And even today, there have been few departures from this fundamental cultural premise governing group expectations in regard to leadership. Self-interest is viewed as antitheti- cal to creative thinking on important native issues. Since aspects of the traditional worldview regarding power and its proper use continue to in- form Ojibwa responses to external agencies and events, Shingwaukonse remains an influential role model for his successors to emulate. Some- times described as a "tree" under whose caring branches the native people could flourish and develop, he had a vision for the future that in its inclu- siveness, comprehensiveness, and respect for native potential captured the imagination of modern native politicians. For, as Fred E. Pine Sr., a fourth- generation descendant of the chief, concludes: "He was a brave man, he wasn't scared of disruption. And he knew he might fail. But that didn't stop him. As one story said, he had a purpose, a gift. He followed his goals. He couldn't turn back. 'And then what kind of man would I be?' he said. 'You cannot leave the path. . . . You wouldn't be remembered.' "'03

Notes

I Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistrcal Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, 6 vols. (Philadelphia, 1851-571, 5:189.

phasize irrational traits in her respondents' characters, even though much of her fieldwork was carried out during Depression years, when those Ojibwa she interviewed would have been experiencing economic and social hardship. The author is indebted to Joan Lovisek for sharing her ideas on this subject.

9 The author is indebted to Ex-Councillor Daniel Erskine Pine Sr., Ex-Council- lor Fred E. Pine Sr., Ex-Councillor Mark Pine, and Ex-Chief Richard Pine Sr. for these insights. Another role is that of tebahkoonegawenene (overseer or judge). The Ojibwa word for "councilior," gagaunsoongad, may cover several of these roles, which are mentioned in numerous published sources, among them Frederick Frost, Sketches of Indian Lifg (Toronto, 1904), 143; and Johann Georg Kohi, Kitchr-Gamz: Wanderings around Lake Supertor (Minneapolis, MN, 1956), 160-61.

10 Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Informatron, 3: 62; Thomas L. McKenney, Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes (Minneapolis, &IN, 1972)~ 235. It is also interesting to note that the roles of mishinaway and oskabewis derived from those of functionaries within Ojibwa conjuring and medicine societies. Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistzcal Information, j:428; A. Irving Hallowell, The Role of Conluring in Saulteaux Society (Philadelphia, 1942), 41.

11 The term "internai colonialism" was first applied in a broad sense to the context of Canada's indigenous peoples in Peter Carstens, "Coercion and Change," in Canadran Society, ed. Richard Ossenberg, (Scarborough, OK,

xxxviii. In association with several officials of the British Indian Department, Brant forged the Ojibwa, Wyandot, Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, Mingoe, Potawatomi, Mississauga, and Munsey into a loose military confederation, with each member nation taking a particular identifying symbol. The Ojibwa joined united under the mark of the Crane. "To the Commissioner of the United States," Resolutions of a Full Council Held at the Foot of the Miamis Rapids, 27 July 1793, Kational Archives of Canada (henceforth NAC), RG 10, vol. 8, 8j2j.

Ij Ojibwa support for resistance waned, however, when warriors fell ili while residing with the Shawnee Prophet during the winter of 1808-9. William War- ren, Htstory of the Ojibway Nation (Minneapolis, MN, 1970), 324; Edmund Danziger, Chippewa of Lake Superior (Xorman, OK,1978); R. David Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet (Lincoln, NE, 198o), 76. It has been argued that de- pendence on the fur trade militated against sustained Ojibwa support of the Shawnee uprising, yet it might also be contended that the Ojibwa recog- nized strategic assets in their geographic position between two major growing national powers, and when conditions favored negotiation and compromise, they abandoned the Shawnee Prophet and his ailies.

entered the Upper Great Lakes country in 1791, feared that rapid American expansion westward might foster a native frontier revolt of even larger propor- tions than the Shawnee uprising. "Henry Rowe Schoolcraft to the President of the United States, 10 February, 1836," Schoolcraft Papers, on microfilm at the library of Michigan State University, East Lansing, reel j; "Journal of John Johnston, 19 June, 1828," Schoolcraft Papers, reei 4.

20 James G. E. Smith, "Leadership among Indians in the Northern \Voodlands," in Currents rn Anthropology: Essays in Honor of Sol Tax, ed. Robert Hinshaw (The Hague, ~q:g), 306-24.

21 '4s elsewhere in the Northeast, the Ojibwa embarked on a degree of resource management in the development of their individual family winter hunting ter- ritory system. See, for instance, Eleanor Leacock, "The Montagnais 'Hunting Territory' and the Fur Trade," American Anthropological Associatron Memoir

78 (1954). 22 Charles A. Bishop, "The Question of Ojibwa Clans," in Actes du vingtieme congres des algonquinistes, ed. \V~lliam Cowan (Ottawa, ON, 1989)~ 43-61. 23 To exchange theorists, power is seen as the capacity to achieve valued goals in a valid transactional forum. 24 One study of this nature by Edward J. Hedican focuses on the northern Ojibwa community of Collins, whose members are mostly nonstatus and hence un- encapsulated and unconstrained by the terms of the Canadian Indian Act. Hedican views communities such as Collins as crucibles in which innovative leadership policies and indigenous political structures may emerge as leaders seek to establish permanent linkages with the state in their pursuit of com- munity economic development (The Ogokr River Guides: Emergent Leadership among the Northern Ojibwa [LVaterloo, ON, 19861). 25 Shingwaukonse himself told of these travels, especially during the 183os, when he was meeting with chiefs and collecting data in the capacity of a mishiniway. For example, his name turns up in Vincent Roy's Vermilion Lake, Minnesota, fur trade account book in the 1830s. George Fulford, "The Pictographic Ac- count Book of an Ojibwa Fur Trader," in Papers of the Twenty-thrrd Algonquian Conference, ed. William Cowan (Ottawa, ON, rqgz), 190-233. 26 One expedition against the Dakota that involved Shingwaukonse occurred in

1810. John Askin Jr. to William Claus, 8 May 1810, NAC, RG 10, vol. 27,16, o, 70, reel c-11, 007. Dr. Oronhyatekha, a Mohawk, learned while visiting Garden River that around 1809 the Ojibwa had held a council at Mackinac regarding which side to join in the event of war between the United States and Britain, and the gathering found its allegiances split. A wampum belt was made to commemorate the event, and Shingwaukonse became its keeper.

27 Even though he was disposed to side with those hostile to the Americans, Shingwaukonse was expected to subordinate personal self-interest to band considerations. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Summary Narrative, ed. Mentor L. Williams (New York, 19731, 77.

28 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontier A.D. 1812 to A.D. 1842 (Kew York, 19751,110, 570.

29 All those bearing the same totemic mark treated each other as siblings re- gardless of which village or band they belonged to in the Upper Great Lakes Ojibwa community. Since a chief's sons and grandsons tended to remain with their paternal unit, however, certain totems tended to be associated with spe- cific locales over time. But while totemic group exogamy prevailed, band and village exogamy did not, so that large bands became composite over time as male individuals joined the unit through marriage. In 18j0 each Ojibwa person at Garden River possessed one of the four local totemic designations: Plover, Crane, Sturgeon, Hawk and Plover.

30 Oral traditions state that Shingwaukonse's mother, Ogimaqua, was a daughter or granddaughter of Great Crane, who died about 1770. They also link John Johnston with Shingwaukonse by arguing that a brother of Waubojeeg, whose daughter married John Johnston, provided companionship for Shingwau- konse's mother after she had separated from Shingwaukonse's father. Kitche Nokay, a chief possessing the caribou totem, had moved to Lapointe during the late French regime. This man had a son, Mamongazida, or Loon's Foot, whose son Waubojeeg, or LVhite Otter, became John Johnston's father-in-law on the trader's marriage to Oshawuscadawaqua, Waubojeeg's daughter. John Johnston's mention of a "Mrs. Sayers," who was a daughter of Mamongazida, brings to mind an Isabella Sayers, baptized at the age of sixty-five into the Anglican faith at Garden River in 183j. Schoolcraft Papers, "Journal of John Johnston, 19 June, 1829," on microfilm in the library of Michigan State Uni- versity, East Lansing; "Report of Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials at Sault Ste. Marie, 6th October 1833-~jth March, 1835,'' Fifth Annual Report of the Society for Converting and Civilizing the Indians of Upper Canada, for the Year Endlng October, 183j. Another well-known chief named Mamongazida, of the Loon totem, resided at Fond du Lac, Minnesota. For references to this chief, see Rebecca Kugel, "Religion Mixed with Politics: The 1836 Conversion of Mang'osid of Fond du Lac," Ethnohistory 37 (1990): 126-57. This man was the brother-in-law of Charles Oakes Ermatinger, a Sault trader, but was not a direct relation of the Mamongazeeda who resided near Lapointe. The Fond du Lac Mamongazida was the son of Katawabedai, or Broken Tooth, head chief of the Loon totem of Sandy Lake, Minnesota, whose daughter married Ermatinger at the British Sault. Schoolcraft, Personal Memoirs, 298.

Shingwaukonse could trace a cognatic relationship through his mother to all Ojibwa bearing the Crane totem in the Upper Great Lakes area. William Warren notes that during the early French era, in the late seventeenth century, a chief named Ketchenezuhyauh, bearing the Crane symbol as his designating mark, lived at the Sault but later moved near Lapointe, Wisconsin. One of this man's younger sons, Shadawish, became a "pioneer towards the head- waters of the Wisconsin River," and it is interesting to note that Shadawish's grandson, Ahmous, or Little Bee, had dealings with Shingwaukonse in the early 18jos. Warren, History of the Ojibway Nation, 131-32, 316-17. See also "Petition to the British Government from Ashkepogegosh and Twenty Other Chiefs, 18j3," NAC, RG 10, vol. 198, pt. I, 116289.

Schoolcraft notes that Kecheokanejeed, or Great Crane, the man from whom Shingwaukonse's mother, Ogemaqua, traced her ancestry, had at least four sons. One of the eldest of these, Maidosagee, in turn had at least eight sons, among whom Shingabaw'osin, or the Image Stone, retained head chief- tainship at the Sault until his death in 1828, when he was succeeded by a younger brother named Kaygayosh. On Kaygayosh's death, Francis Osha- wano, also known as Cassaquadung-who was a grandson of one of Llai- dosagee's brothers-assumed leadership on the American side of the rapids, while Shingwaukonse became head chief at Garden River on the British side. Nebenagoching, or Joseph Sayers, became head chief at the British Sault. Nebenagoching's father, White Crane, had been a son of Maidosagee.

The Sault and the Lapointe Cranes probably were related in the distant past to a common ancestral group that split apart during the early French regime. It is fairly evident that the two descendant branches kept communi- cat in^ wlth one another on a regular basis.

0 0

Shingwaukonse's paternal ancestry is very difficult to trace, since there are so many conflicting stories regarding it. Some infer that John Askin Sr. of Mackinac may have been his father. J. G. Kohl states that about 18j6 he heard that Shingwaukonse's father had been a British officer. or a Scotsman.

"

But this may have referred to Shingwaukonse's attachment to John Askin Sr. and John Askin Jr. See Kohl, Kltchi-Gami, 374-77. Other stories point to Jean Baptiste Barthe, of Sault Ste. Marie. But it is likely that Shingwaukonse's father was a trader named Lavoine Barthe. Ex-councillor Daniel E. Pine Sr., the grandson of Shingwaukonse, and the son of one of Little Pine's sons who was actually called "John Askin." Interview with ex-councillor Pine Sr., 13 June 1983. There is some documentary support that Shingwaukonse may have been the son of the Metis trader Lavolne Barthe, who was related to both Jean Baptiste Barthe Sr. and John Askin Sr., since Askin married one of Jean Baptiste Barthe's sisters. Shingwaukonse adopted the name Augustin Bart (Barthe) at the time of the 1820 American treaty signing at the rapids, and one of his sons, whose Ojibwa name was Tegoosh, was also called Pierre Lavoine. For a detailed discussion of Shingwaukonse's possible paternity, see Janet E. Chute, "A Century of Native Leadership: Shingwaukonse and His Heirs" (Ph.D. diss., McMaster University, 1986), 94.

31 Regarding Shingwaukonse's independence from the United States, see School- craft, Histortcal and Stattstical Information, I :112; Schoolcraft, Personal itfern- oirs, 549 It should be noted that Midewiwin practitioners exercised their powers not only for their immediate group but on behalf of all who solicited their services. Southwestern Ojibwa leaders may have prevailed on Shingwau- konse during a four-day Midewiwin ceremony to speak and work on behalf

of their interests. See Kohl, Kitchi-Cam, 380-82.

The information on Shingwaukonse's acquisition of the Plover totem was first gained from ex-councillor Daniel Erskine Pine Sr. in August 1982. I think one has to be very careful about basing one's views of the totemic system on William Warren's description of it in his History of the Ojibway Nation. I expect that the five totems Warren argues were the earliest in the Upper Great Lakes area actually refer to a meeting of power holders, sometime in the past, who bore those totems Warren mentions as identifiers. LVilliam War- ren and Buhkwujjenene, one of Shingwaukonse's sons, actually were related, as Buhkwujjenene married Marguerite Cadotte, the daughter of Michael Ca- dotte and the granddaughter of Jean Baptiste Cadotte. It is therefore surprising that William Warren would not have mentioned the Plover totem when he was related to a man who bore it. Lewis Henry Morgan and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft only refer to the Snipe totem. Morgan's term, however, is chueskweskewa, which at Garden River means "plover," not "snipe," which is muhno.menekashe (Ancrent Society [Chicago, 18771, 166). Paul Pine, Ogista's son, who acted as Morgan's guide in his researches into beaver habits near Marquette, Michigan, may have been his source for this totemic designation.

33 Waubejejauk, or White Crane, a leading chief of the Sault band who had been killed during the War of 1812, had married a daughter of a French trader, Per- rault. His son, Kebenagoching, became a chief at the British Sault. Numerous other examples of this type may be given.

34 White, The Middle Ground.

jj It could not be called a composite society simllar to the Glaize and other transitional period settlements in the Ohio Valley, since only one nation, the Ojibwa, represented predominantly by one totemic group, the Cranes, charac- terized Sault aboriginal society -traits that superficially made it appear qulte homogeneous. The Ojibwa would assimilate only Metis who adopted their customs and mores. For a description of the Glaize during the late eighteenth century, see Helen Hornbeck Tanner, "The Glaize in 1792: A Composite Indian Community," Ethnohistory 25 (1978): 15-39.

36 These posts were located at blichipicoten, Sault Ste. Marie, and Lacloche. 37 E. H. Blair, ed., The Indian Tribes of the Upper Missrssippi Valley and Region of the Great Lakes, 2 vols. (Cleveland, OH, I~II),1:3oq-10.

38 In the late 1840s Metis descendants of the independent Sault traders hoped that land arrangements made by their ancestors in the 17jOS and 1760s with Great Crane might help them secure their own holdings. See, for instance, "Affidavit to the Governor from Louis Kolin and Louis Gorneau, Novem- ber, 1847," Regional Collections, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Alexander Vidal Papers, affidavit in Alexander Vidal's Memorandum Book.

43 The Reverend William McMurray to George Johnston, 7 May 1833, George Johnston Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

44 Shingwaukonse traveled widely to participate in native political councils and ceremonies, as oral traditions at Garden River still attest. That he never completely relinquished his Midewiwin beliefs is evident in the fact that he continued to possess Midewiwin bark scrolls throughout his lifetime and that his descendants, even as late as 1985, retained knowledge of such traditional religious ceremonies. In the mid-1850s one of his sons testified that the chief had destroyed his blidewiwin paraphernalia only shortly before h~s death. Kohl, Kltchi-Gami, 384.

ac Incidents of such ioint coo~eration mav be found in the Hudson's Bav Com-

46 The author is indebted to Bruce White for his klndness in bringing his report "The Regional Context of the Removal Order" to her attention. Prepared in 1993 for the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwa, the report employs American sources in d~scussing events leading up to, and surrounding, the Amer~can Removal Order of 1850 According to James Clifton, the United States government began a lim~ted removal in Wisconsin but later gave up its plans to relocate the Wisconsin Oj~bwa. It is these events, between 1837 and 1853, that had af- fected Shingwaukonse's activities. For information on the Wisconsin removal, see James A. Clifton, "Wisconsin Death March: Explaining the Extremes of Old Northwest Indian Removal," Transactions of the IVisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 75: 1-39.

47 Despite the fact that some Metis families, such as the Nolins and Birons, were descended from the scions of independent trading houses, most were poor. Their principal sources of income were the commercial fishery and seasonal wage work for the Hudson's Bay Company. To a lesser extent they farmed small plots, guided, and trapped fur. Some resorted to smuggling liquor across the international border. Yet they also possessed valuable skills that the Ojibwa lacked. Metis women could weave cloth, spin and sew, churn butter, and tend domestic animals; Metis men were adept at carpentry and boatbuild- ing. They also knew more than their Ojibwa counterparts about world events and sought to make their community part of the larger sphere. To this end sev- eral family heads educated in Lower Canada repeatedly drafted petitions on behalf of their community to the provincial government or the Roman Catho- lic bishop regarding local land or church affairs. The boundary between the Ojibwa and Met~s communities was often ambiguous, however. For example, in an 1835 petition to the l~eutenant governor, Sir John Colborne, numerous signees, including Shingwaukonse's son, Pierre Lavoine, and Nebenagoching, the Crane chief at the British Sault, argued that the Anglican missionary had prevented them from cutting wood to construct a Roman Catholic chapel, even though they had "previously obtained the consent of the principal chief [Shingwaukonse] for so doing." "To His Excellency, Sir John Colborne, K.B., 1835,'' Canadian Roman Catholic Archdiocesan Archives, Toronto, AC 2402, Bishop McDonnell Papers.

48 First Speech of Chinquakous-Young Pine, 1837, James Givens Papers, Bald- win Room, Toronto bletropolitan Library. In the fall of 183j Sir Francis Bond Head succeeded Sir John Colborne as lieutenant governor. After a tour of Indian m~ssions in Upper Canada, Bond Head declared that the idea of establishing yet another government-supported settlement at Sault Ste. Marie would result in a costly and probably fruitless endeavor, and he suggested removing the entire Garden River band to Manitoulin Island. Shingwaukonse was perturbed that Bond Head did not visit the Sault mission, however. At this time there were government plans to remove the Sault Metis to St. Joseph's Island in northern Lake Huron. The opposition of Britain's Protestant mis- sionary societies to Bond Head's removal scheme led to a return to the former civilization program initiated by Sir John Colborne. As a result, Bond Head's successor, Sir George Arthur, directed that axes and other tools be sent to Garden River as a token of the government's good faith in the community. Extract from a letter from Sir George Arthur, lieutenant governor, to Chief Shinquackouce, dated Gov't. House, York, 19 September 1839, NAC, RG I, ~j, ECO file IIj7, vol. 8, 1848.

j2 kformation used in MidCwiwin ritual was recorded by the use of mnemonic symbols inscribed on wooden boards or birth bark scrolls.

53 For instance, when a zealous frontier preacher declared the end of the world at hand and provided the chief wich a firm date for the event, Shingwaukonse simply cut notches in his pipestem until the designated day arrived, and after watching the sky carefully, he decided the whole affair was a hoax. Report of the Reverend F. A. O'Meara, 19 December 1843, AO, MG 2j, Strachan Papers.

60 In Xovember 1846 the Executive Council had authorized the sale of avproximately thiny large mining locations along the north shore of ~akks Huron and Superior in keeping with the terms of an order-in-council passed earlier in May. Each location had to conform in size to sixty-four hundred acres to accord with a government standard set to discourage sneculation

" " L

and prevent minor entrepreneurial interests from competing with powerful blontreal-controlled mining companies. A copy of the order-in-council was sent to Joseph Wilson, the land agent and Indian agent at the Sault. KAC, RG 10, ~01.159, 91442-43. George Desbarats to Major Campbell, 10 May 1847, Indian Affairs Records. Copies in the Indian File at the Bruce Llines Museum, Bruce Mines, OK. Alan Knight, "Allan Macdonell and the Pointe au Mines-Mica Bay Affairs," Research Paper for York University, 1982; Douglas Leighton, "The Historical Significance of the Robinson Treaties of 18to." naner given at the Canadian

T. G. Anderson to Major Campbell, 9 October 1949, NAC,RG 10, vol. 173,100434. Anderson was an official of the Indian Affairs Department."Minutes of a council led by T. G. Anderson, V.S.I.A. at Sault Ste. Marie onFriday the 18th day of August, 1848," NAC,RG I, ES, ECO file 1157, vol. 8.Anderson included the press release in a letter to his superior. T. G. Andersonto Major Campbell, 9 October 1849, NAC,RG 10, ~01.173,100434-46.It has been held that Allan Macdonell did not practice law from 1837 to 1858.Donald Swainson, "Allan Macdonell," in The Dictionary of Canadian Biog-raphy, 13 vols. (Toronto, 1982), 11: 552-55. Macdonell, however, informallyassisted the Ojibwa legally from 1849 to 1853 and perhaps even afterward."Report of Commissioners A. Vidal and Thomas G. Anderson on a visit toIndians on Korth Shore Lake Huron and Superior for purpose of investigat-ing their claims to territory bordering on these Lakes. Appendix," AO, IrvingPapers, MU 1464 26/31/04.William John Keating, report, 1853, NAC, RG 10, vol. 207,122406-25.The local Anglican missionary noted on 23 January 1849, "Chief Shingwau-konse gave them leave to settle here" at Garden River. Diary of the ReverendGustavus Anderson, 26 August 1848 to 23 May 1849, Thomas G. AndersonPapers, s 29, Folder B, Baldwin Room, Metropolitan Toronto Library.

74 Alexander Vidal, Memorandum of Indian Mission, 1849, Vidal Papers, CA YON,VID 33, Regional Collections, University of Western Ontario, London. See also A Journal of Proceedings on My Mission to the Indians-Lake Superior and Huron, 1849, by Alexander Vidal, transcribed by George Smith, with historical notes by M. Elizabeth Arthur (Bright's Cove, ON,1974).

75 Report of Commissioners A. Vidal and Thomas G. Anderson on a visit to Indians on North Shore Lake Huron and Superior for purpose of investigating their claims to territory bordering on these Lakes, 1849,7. With extracts from the notes taken at the conference with the Indians at the Sault Ste. Marie- 15 and 16 October 1849, AO, Irving Papers, MU 1464 26/31/04.

76 William MacTavish, the Hudson's Bay Company factor at the Sault, stated that the Mica Bay expedition had been in its planning stages for a long time, although there had been some dispute as to whether Michipicoten or Mica Bay would be the destination. William MacTavish to A. H. Campbell, 11Kovember 1849, Sault Ste. Marie Post, Correspondence Book, NAC, ~IG20,

~/194/bl1~/1849-50. 77 According to the local Hudson's Bay Company factor, the expedition in- cluded the Macdonell brothers, another layer named Wharton Metcalfe,

three American Ojibwa (one of whom was the head chief Oshabvano, also named Cassaquadung), five American Metis, twelve Canadian Ojibwa, thir- teen Canadian Metis, and one French Canadian. William MacTavish to A. H. Campbell, 16 November 1849, Sault Ste. Marie Post, Correspondence Book,

253-54, 80 British Colonist, Toronto, 8 February 1850. 81 William MacTavish to George Simpson, 17 October 1849, NAC,MG 20, ~/194/

bl15I1849-50. 82 Macdonell, who spoke the Ojibwa language, wrote of this relationship: "I have lived among the Indians some little time and am received among them as one of their own people. The chiefs of the different bands upon the Lake have reposed a trust and confidence in me which I deem worthy of attention." Macdonell to Bruce, 23 December 1849, NAC, RG 10, vol. 179,103884,

83 The Patrrot, Toronto, 19 December 1849.84 See, for example, the article in the Detroit Free Press, 22 December 1849.85 Robert J. Surtees, "Land Cessions, 1763-1830,'' in Rogers and Smith, Aborigi-

nal Ontario, 92-121.

86 Reserve boundaries delineated on a survey plan prepared in 1853 by J. S. Dennis do not conform to the description of the boundaries of the Garden River Reserve as set out in the Robinson Huron treaty of 1850. One expla- nation for the discrepancy is that the survey plan of 1853 releases the Clark location from the burden of native title by isolating it beyond the reserve's "re- vised" western boundary. Peterborough, ON, Ministry of Natural Resources, Survey Records, Plan 14, KI~, 2484 by J. S. Dennis, 14 May 1853.

87 The Ojibwa promised to keep Philetus Church's establishment "supplied wich logs for sawing" for ten years, while the merchant would pay twenty-five pounds annually to Little Pine for the privilege of having the timber protected from exploitation by other commercial agencies. The Ojibwa would be paid for logs they wished to sell, and Church promised to saw a certain quota of the timber hauled to his mill for the band's own use, free of charge. The local Anglican missionary felt the contract to be a good one, because Church had dealt honestly wich the band for many years. Unfortunately, the merchant resided on Sugar Island, just offshore of the reserve, but on the American side of the border. Agreement between Shingwaukonse and his band and P. S. Church, July 1851, NAC,RG 10, vol. 191, 11383-84. After 1851 a young and energetic Methodist missionary, the Reverend George MacDougall, renewed the band's interest in farming and assisted with the building of houses and barns in the community. 88 Allan Macdonell to George Brown, 20 April 1853, George Brown Papers, Correspondence, AO, his 91, pkg. 11. The law was titled An Act to Make Better Provision for the Administration of justice in the Unorganized Tracts of the Country in Upper Canada (16Vict. Cap. 176). 89 The Garden River band raised two hundred pounds for the expedition, and Church gave seventy pounds. Joseph Wilson to George Ironsides, 21 March 1853, NAC, RG 10, ~01.201, PC. 2,119396-97.

90 William Warren provides a detailed genealogy for Amose, whose name is also spelled "Xhmous," in History of the Ojibway Nation, 318. Ahmous was Kech- enezuhyauh's great-great-grandson. Other alternate spellings include Xmoos and Amous.

94 Shingwaukonse's grave site lay on the west bank of the Garden River. Kohl, Kitchi-Gami, 373. It has since been destroyed by erosion, but the Anglican Church, which was located nearby, is sometimes regarded as a symbolic marker to his burial site.

97 Four gravel pits, the source of the high-grade stone used by Ontario in 1909 in the construction of the Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury trunk road, were ex- propriated by the Canadian Pacific Railway under the Railway Act of 1879 despite a malor protest movement launched against their alienation by the Garden River band between 1897 and 1913. Correspondence on the gravel pits, NAC, RG 10, vol. 2068, file 10, 307, pt. 2.

98 George Kabaosa was forced to step down as elected chief shortly after he had won office in March 1916; 4 March 1916, Sault Ste. Marie Agency Records, AO,MS 216 (j). His campaigns to gain prerogatives over timber on the reserve were taken UD bv Chief Amable Boissoneau in the 1920s.

I , ,,

99 The favoring of inclusiveness had proceeded so far that Eshkebugecooshe at Leech Lake had called for radical structural reforms in initiation rites. Schoolcraft. Historical and Statistical Information. r : a26-27.

102 For instance. in the earlv decades of the twentieth centurv the Garden River First Nation won a victory when the government sanctioned an agreement be- tween the Ojibwa and a local quarrying company that ensured employment for band members, provided insurance benefits, respected boundaries set down by the chief and council, and stated that when the site ceased to be worked, it would revert to the band. Ultimately, all sides benefited, and the Ojibwa showed themselves to be a responsible and just host group to outside entre- preneurial interests willing to negotiate and adhere respectfully to their terms. AO, Sault Ste. Marie Agency Records, 1924, Department of Indian Affairs, &IS 216 (8)."Garden River Trap Rock Deposit to be Operated-s~,ooo,ooo Plant Assured," Sault Star, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, 23 Kovember 1928.

103 The author is indebted to Mr. Pine for his willingness to share his knowl- edge about hls great-grandfather, Shingwaukonse, as well as about Ojibwa leadership in general. This information is drawn from an intervieur with ex-councillor Fred Erskine Pine Sr., j January 1984.